In this Program Project we are studying the effects of protein malnutrition of the developing brain. Anatomical, physiological, biochemical and behavioral studies are being carried out in rats whose mothers were protein malnourished 5 weeks prior to mating and maintained on a low protein diet throughout pregnancy and lactation. The neurochemistry group is determining the effects of protein malnutrition on interrelations between insulin, glucagon, growth hormone, and corticosterone secretion and tryptophan metabolism during pre- and postnatal development. The physiology group is investigating function of aminergic subsystems, i.e., locus coeruleus and raphe nuclei and their projections to the forebrain in normal and malnourished animals. These are serving as model chemical systems for detailed electrophysiological analyses of the effects of malnutrition on these diffusely projecting biogenic amine pathways. The physiology group is also extending its previous findings on sleep state ontogeny and analyzing its perturbations produced by malnutrition. In these studies it is assembling a power spectral EEG atlas of the developing brain in normal and protein malnourished animals. A study of the effects of malnutrition on behavior is examining learning and memory and several motor behaviors. The anatomy group, primarily using morphometric Golgi techniques, is examining, in collaboration with the physiology group, the effects of protein malnutrition on the serotonin and norepinephrine nuclei of the brainstem (raphe nuclei and locus coeruleus).